


1988 Is the Year, 1989 Is the Place

by Highsmith (quimtessence)



Series: A Bus to Somewhere [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Future Fic, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Masturbation, No Spoilers, Phone Sex, Post-Season/Series 02, Sexual Fantasy, Teen Angst, Will Byers Is Seventeen Years Old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 06:25:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19762429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/pseuds/Highsmith
Summary: Senior year starts out with Billy packing up and driving off for California early Monday morning, and ends with Will's mom picking him up after school to take him for pancakes and a Talk, as if he's back to being a little kid again, messing up in a way which a diner dessert could make better.I want to say this could be read as a standalone. Like, there's enough context clues to make it make sense. But I recommend readingWhat I Did on My Summer VacationandAll the Small Towns in Americafirst for the background and the better porn.(AU pre-S3. No spoilers whatsoever.)





	1988 Is the Year, 1989 Is the Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trashcangimmick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashcangimmick/gifts).



> 100% trashcangimmick's fault.
> 
> [tumblr](https://rhubarbdreams.tumblr.com)

Senior year starts out with Billy packing up and driving off for California early Monday morning, and ends with Will's mom picking him up after school to take him for pancakes and a Talk, as if he's back to being a little kid again, messing up in a way which a diner dessert could make better.

Will hasn't panicked for years, but he panics now. Silently and acceptingly. The guilt of long, sleepless summer nights behind closed doors shreds at his insides, but the shame is strangely absent.

The diner they drive to is in an old, ominous-looking building outside of town, but it's clean and oddly charming on the inside, and their blueberry pancakes are delicious. Will feels sick to his stomach the entire time, but forces himself to get through half of his plate before glancing up into his mother's worried eyes. He can't help but to expect the worst; it's almost a relief.

Joyce Byers wouldn't yell about her youngest son and a boy, but she might worry herself sick when her youngest son is getting the daylights fucked out of him by Billy Hargrove all summer long.

"Honey, I just worry," she starts, anticipating his protestations that she should not, _honestly, mom_. That he's nearly eighteen. An adult. Still a boy to her, though.

As he's been doing for years, he waits her out.

"I want you to have a life. A life outside of Hawkins."

It's surely not showing, the relief, the newly erupting sense of guilt, or even the slight confusion. Will Byers is a blank slate onto which other people project their own shit. He's an unproblematic sounding board to be put away when they're done. To his mom's benefit, that might be, just a little, unfair. But maybe not.

She goes on. "I know you can do so much more, and _better_ , than mail-order glossy covers."

The low-level panic is quelled, leaving him grasping at a response. The leftover adrenaline is a sour rush in the back of his throat, clogging it up, stoppering any words which might come. Unlike her sons, Joyce Byers has never been good about waiting people out.

"Have you thought about college out of state?"

Will blinks. His pancakes are turning into sugary mush on the flower-patterned plate in front of him.

"Promise me you will. That you'll think about it." It's near pleading. It's a last-ditch effort. It's her own demons and her own guilt and her own regrets outside of anything he's ever said or done.

Berkeley has a good art programme. Berkeley is where Billy is going back to as a junior majoring in English. Berkeley is the address Billy left on a scrap of paper on his nightstand for Will to find early Sunday morning.

Will says none of these things.

Instead, he stares at his half-eaten pancakes, at the stained wood of the diner table top, at the worn chair upholstery between his legs. He says, "I'll think about it," and makes it sound as if he hasn't already decided. Put all his eggs in one basket.

Early admission deadlines are late October, but Berkeley doesn't offer it. He covers all his bases anyway, if only to avoid the questions and the prying.

Will licks the envelopes shut himself and neatly pens in his home address. It's a waiting game, but he's sweated out worse.

Crisp return envelopes come in fat in an avalanche of replies. The only reply he's searching for isn't due until late March, but feels like it has to be the fattest envelope of all of them, or nothing at all.

The first postcard he sends is in mid-December, and it reads, _**Wish you were here.**_ He doesn't mean for the neat block letters to be mocking, or trite, just maybe too painfully honest, but he stares at them for far too long anyway, trying to decipher the subtext he may have inadvertently imbued them with. He sends it out anyway. The front is an artist's rendition of The Hawk from its early fifties glory days. Beats _Greetings from Hawkins, Indiana_ in neon chunky script any day of the week.

Jonathan can't make it home for the holidays. Will stares at the back of his own hand next to the phone receiver as the call clicks off.

Mom is working another double-shift, and Max has been implying all week she'd just gotten her hands on something golden, the real shit, and Will was more than welcomed to partake. He wonders if the two of them are the step-children of their own little Party, left to their own devices when all else fails, when everyone else goes back to their home bubbles.

It's the day before Christmas. The mail is late in getting delivered, but it's not as if Will's expecting any more decision letters until the new year.

Billy's postcard is a plain, golden sandy beach, on the back of which a phone number is written in an even hand. Nothing else.

Will takes his chances with a reverse charge call. The operator lets him know the caller is accepting his collect call just before the phone clicks. It's a little bit anticlimactic, to tell the truth.

He takes the first step himself. Has to. "Hello?"

"You just got my letter?" The connection is weak on the shitty Byers house phone.

He's gotten a postcard with a phone number. Will doesn't correct him. Instead, he responds with, "Yeah," his voice small and soft. He worries for a moment the line won't pick it up, but Billy's quick to say, "Good." Maybe a little gruff, maybe not. The connection isn't the best.

It should be awkward after that. What should either of them even say?

Will ends up jacking himself off standing upright in his own living room with Billy Hargrove talking him through it from California.

The words he's saying don't matter much. His voice over the line doesn't have its usual heady starkness, which is a bit of a bummer for Will, but it works for him anyway.

Even licks to his palm is all the slickness he's getting, but it's worked for him for years now, and standing there, Billy's voice in his ear, yeah, that's. That's enough. That's all it takes to have him wet and leaking anyway. It bubbles up at the tip and he drags it down the length of his dick, all the way to the root, making a mess of his pubic hair. It's always a bit of a mess.

His thumb isn't hesitant to sweep underneath the head on the upstroke. The circles he's making there with his fingers are still slow. He's taking it slow. He _wants_ to take it slow, but it's a struggle to keep himself standing, and keep his breathing even, and keep himself from saying something truly embarrassing. So he moans throatily, whines at the touch of his own hand, his grip tighter tighter _tight_.

His eyes fall on the opposite wall. The greying carpet. Their old couch. His palm speeds up. The friction is delicious, has his head buzzing, the blood rushing everywhere all at once. The receiver is balanced precariously in the crook of his neck, his other hand behind him gripping the wall to stay upright.

There's a familiar edge soon enough. It's a tight coil through his entire body, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Like putting your fingers into live sockets.

He doesn't even know what Billy is saying anymore. What _he's_ saying. He wishes they were in the same room right now. He wishes for Billy's thick fingers in his crease, his blunt thumb pushing in with a dry tip, just enough to hold Will open for the tender pink of his insides to show around Billy's digit.

He might be saying that out loud. He wouldn't really know.

Billy is hissing as if he's been burnt, though. Groans out a slow _fuck_. Will can only agree, or at least whimper and lowly say _yes, yes, yeah_ in between drawn-out moans. He chances letting go of the wall to grip at himself with both hands. He brings shaky fingers to the tender, thin skin just behind his balls. Presses there and drives his other hand even faster on his cock. Then fondles upwards to grasp and squeeze, and push himself even farther along.

He's dripping sweat, and his grip is slipping. He doesn't know what it is, if something Billy's saying registers, or if it's his own doing entirely, but it's suddenly all too much. His hips are already bucking into his hand, and his cockhead is twitching, and then he's coming, all thick in his own sweaty hand.

He's exhausted all of a sudden. The air is still and soupy around him. The watery milkiness in his palm is almost hypnotising. He takes a deep, steadying breath.

He's surprised the phone receiver's still next to his ear. There's almost no sound coming from the other end, however.

"Billy?" he tentatively asks. They could have been disconnected somewhere along the line.

It's a molasses-thick voice which says, "Yeah." Like an acknowledgement. Like Will did it all _just right_. He doesn't know what to think.

Then, "Good boy."

Will's moan is high-pitched and embarrassing and not even _close_ to how he's feeling. It's instantaneous. He can't help it. He doesn't know how to recover from it. His cock gives a half-hearted twitch, but stays only half-hard.

"Billy," he whimpers, no control. Ends the vowel sound on a thready moan. His face is on fire. He doesn't want to be barely standing in his empty house at three in the afternoon pathetically moaning Billy's name, but it's instinctive at this point.

And Billy Hargrove isn't someone he'd think of as compassionate. Not by far. And Will doesn't expect him to be, not with Will, not with anyone.

And maybe it's not compassion, or anything even remotely close to it. But there's a shift somewhere in his midsection on his next words Will can't quite define even to himself.

"You'll be all right," Billy mutters.

The connection sounds even weaker. Billy's voice even farther away.

Will believes him. It'll be all right.


End file.
